"Unfair competition" law greeted with protests from shops and hypermarkets

Hypermarkets in Poland are flooding the market with coupons in a race to attract clients before November 10, when the new Unfair Competition bill comes into effect. Under the new regulations, shops will not be allowed to issue their own coupons that sometimes offer clients discounts of as much as 20%, as the bill defines any actions forcing clients to use one particular shop as unfair competition. The new law, claim retailers, will create losses of up to zl. 900 million when their sales fall. Most of the retail networks, citing lawyers, claim that all coupons bought before November 10 will remain valid after the deadline, but some say the possibility of the coupons expiring exists as the bill is poorly-constructed and open to a number of different interpretations. "According to our lawyers, coupons sold before November 9 will be valid, as the law does not work in retrospect," said Lidia Deja, spokeswoman for Geant Polska. (Rzeczpospolita, p. B3) J.K.